The most gullible people in the world

November 6, 2012 by Cosmas Odoemena

A Harvard study said the most gullible people in the world are the Filipinos. The study said, “The causes of this gullibility include the inability to question information and an over-reliance on interpersonal sources.” The study also said, “For Fillipinos, a tsunami warning from the government does less than a mother’s directive to avoid the sea because of syokoys (mermen).” According to the Mosquito Press that reported it, “The study involved content analyses of over 500,000 historical documents from 300 societies. The documents were then evaluated according to a quantitative metric called the Gump Index.” The study went on, “What’s curious about the Filipino condition is despite a respectable literacy rate, many of its people still believe that condoms cause cancer – or that Appolo Quiboloy, CEO of kingdom of Jesus Christ, The Name Above Every Name, Inc. is the son of God.”

The Harvard Institute of Socio-political Progression may have gone through a rigorous effort in arriving at the Filipinos, but the same can be said of Nigerians. Recently, a 62-year-old male patient was brought to us by his son who was not satisfied with the treatment he was getting in a ‘home’ in Cotonou in Benin Republic where the children had taken him for treatment because the man was “behaving abnormally.” What amazed us was that we were the ones who pointed to the injuries which we discovered on the man’s body. Apparently, the old man had been traumatised to ‘remove’ whatever was ailing him. And it took our pointing these out for the man’s relatives to realise this. The face, the body and even the genitals were all assaulted, for the dementia we found he has.

All too often, Nigerians fall easily to swindlers, especially money doublers. Usually, the customer brings a small amount of money say N10, which they hide under a scrap of cloth. The trick is for a few customers to win small amounts to convince those with big money to play. Those who win the small sums are smart when they take their winning and walk away. But the greedy will stay and stake a bigger sum. The customer is given the cloth with the money and warned not to open it for a given period of time. When the customer opens it, he finds no money but scraps of paper. And when he returns to complain, they lay the blame on him, he must have opened it before the given time. Even now, Nigerians will go for ‘wonder banks’ that promise unreasonable returns.

Aristotle said, “Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.” In Nigeria, the youths are lured easily by politicians for their own selfish purposes. And when the politicians have no need of them they discard them. Looking for work to do, and finding none, the youths become a menace to the society.

At no place than the church is the gullibility of Nigerians most manifest. Nigerians, believing that whatever the pastors tell them is divinely inspired, accept everything in ‘faith’. People have been flagellated to exorcise their purported demons. Men have allowed their pastors sleep with their wives believing that it would be the solution to the couple’s infertility. Nigerians, seeking for any means to get wealthy, go to witchdoctors who are poor themselves. Idolaters carve images and call them their god.

Nigerians have an unrivalled herd mentality. Suicide bombers have continued to bomb their own fellow Nigerians in the dubious belief that they are carrying out a divine injunction. And because of gullibility, there is no shortage of recruits. Without asking questions, without examining facts, Nigerians gang up to mob and burn fellow Nigerians alive; petty thieves, anybody whose voice cannot be heard allowed, with the Aluu Four the latest victims. It has happened many times where Nigerian men, women, children, or even a whole family follows the leader who has gone to vandalise oil pipelines or gone to scoop oil when it has burst, as if they are all in a trance, and getting roasted in the event.

Tribalism is not left out of the consequences of gullibility. Nigerian children grow up hating other tribes because their parents told them that those other tribes are their enemy. When the children grow up, they pass it on to their children and the cycle goes on. It is this deep-seated prejudice that has made Prof. Chinua Achebe’s new Civil War memoir, “There was a country”, an issue of truculence.

Perhaps, the most gullible among Nigerians is the government, particularly to organisations such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank and some other so-called international lenders. As of today, Nigeria’s debt profile is $44bn, and recently it signed a new deal to borrow $600m from China’s Export-Import Bank, supposedly to build a railway to service Abuja and its environs, a deal said to be in dispute. If our earnings from oil are judiciously used and leprous hands of corruption don’t touch them, we would not need to borrow money to finance any projects. Our creditors sold Structural Adjustment Programme to us, and we took it because anyone in debt is a slave to the one who lends.

Debt is a tool for manipulation by neoliberalists led by these institutions and other institutions known as the “Washington Consensus”. They sold to a gullible Nigerian government the idea of fuel subsidy withdrawal. They preach privatisation but are on hand to make sure local industries are not protected, and do not survive, so that they will have a leeway for their own exports. They are the ones who sold devaluation of currency and high interest rate to our government.

The line usually starts with “Fellow Nigerians…” and the yarn goes on. Only gullible people are taken in by “Shelter for all by the year 2000”; “Food for all by the year…”; “Health for all…” or that by 2020, Nigeria will rank among the 20 biggest economies in the world.

I am not done yet. Gullibility fosters corruption. That is why fuel subsidy thieves can manufacture any figures to get undue payments under the nose of gullible Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and government officials and still get away with it.

In Nigeria, many still ascribe the cause of stroke to an attack from the ‘enemies’ or from the gods. Such is the way of Nigerians that the very sight of two goats fighting can attract a crowd and keep them standing there and even cause a traffic hold-up, or even an accident. It is in Nigeria where a juju man has more credibility than a professor of science. It is in Nigeria we vote politicians in because they had no shoes growing up.

If we must develop as a nation, government, institutions, individuals should be critical and refrain from swallowing everything hook, line and sinker. As G.K. Chesterton, journalist, novelist, and essayist said, “Do not be so open-minded that your brains fall out”.

- Dr. Odoemena, a medical practitioner, wrote in from Lagos via cuzdetriumph@yahoo.co.uk

i still wonder if by GOD GRACE we find our selves in heaven some tirbes from nigeria will still try to introduce tribalism in heaven , the sophiscated taribe in nigeria and were yet to produce common manual key not to talk of handy charger

Abami-Eda

Vague and rambling article. Sounds like a palm wine joint discussion. No structure or symmetry. Start, make your point, then close. Don’t ramble.

omo

if this article does not make sense to you, then you are more than gullible!!!!!!!! a true Nigerian

Mutiu

If We are not gullible,We will not buy a litre of Petrol at #130.00 when We protested against similar price just this January ! You think You are not gullible yet You pay, regularly, electricity bills of which You did not consume. Nigerians are not only gullible but I think We are equally too docile ! I agree completely with the Writer.

pj

WITHDRAW STEVEN OROSANYE’S NATIONAL HONOUR.

scofield

Good reasoning
High time we think.

Baraq must win

the most gullible are the Igbos. they are being led astray by Uwazulike and his co Biafra liberators while pocketing huge sums of money from equally gullible donors. Uwazulike is championing Biafra but he is going about every state in Nigeria installing eze Igbos.

WELL IT TOOK NIGERIA 3 GOOD YEARS TO FIGHT IGBOS BIAFRA EVEN WITH THE HELP OF BRITISH AND RUSSIAN SOLDIERS THIS TIME AROUND NO ONE WILL HELP THEM NIGERIA WILL BE IN HELL SOON, IF ANYTHING HAPPENED TO THOSE PEOPLE ARRESTED IN ENUGU HELL WILL GET LOSE, HAS NIGERIA WITNESS ATOMIC MISSILE BEFORE? YOU WILL SEE IT AND HIROSHIMA WILL BE A TOY TO COMPARE WHAT NIGERIA WILL SEE IN THE HAND OF BIAFRA…HELL WILL GET LOSE OOH CAN ANY RIGHT THINKING HUMAN BEING ASK NIGERIA SOLDIERS IN ENUGU TO RELEASE THOSE ARRESTED INNOCENT MEN AND WOMEN? THE HELL WILL SOON GET LOSE, BOKO HARAM IS A TOY TO COMPARE WHAT NIGERIA WILL SEE AT THE HAND OF BIAFRANS RELEASE THOSE GUYS. I WILL UNLEASH MY ANGER WITH ATOMIC MISSILE TO NIGERIA I SWEAR TO YOU, NIGERIA WILL TURN TO ASHES

MY VOICE

SOON THE PEOPLE YOU KICKED AT THE CORNER, THE IGBOS YOU HATE TODAY WILL BE GIANT TOMORROW IF YOU LIKE HATE IGBOS TO THE CORE, THEY WILL STILL WAX STRONG AND EVER STRONG, THE HEBREW PEOPLE IN NIGERIA, THE JEWS IN NIGERIA ARE IGBO’S TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT, SOON YOU WILL SEE IT

Olakunle Ojo

This is the true bane of all the woes in the country, a country with good education without good knowledge and mastery of situations to show for it.

But i awareness programme and campaign for scientific approach to every should be promoted, gradually peoples eyes may open to how they drop their “gullibility”